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I had Matlab for years until they changed their pricing structure. I paid about $200 to $300 USD a year for maybe a decade, then they decided a major upgrade was worth ~$1300. I dropped it (or rather just stuck with the old). A few years later I needed it for a college class I was giving and called Mathworks; they actually gave me a full-blown license. Guess it pays to be a teacher. Since then they have rolled out "individual" pricing so I re-upped but haven't had time to use it much. Similar thing happened with Mathcad but they have never rolled out cheaper pricing (I think, quit looking a few years ago) so I am running an ancient version. I hope it doesn't break as I have a ton of audio-related Mathcad files; that was my main tool for years, and my company does not provide Mathcad (they do Matlab but restrict "private" use).

Don Herman
"After silence, that which best expresses the inexpressible, is music" - Aldous Huxley

Yes, that is an excellent suggestion! I have piddled with Octave at work some (we use Python extensively so also NumPy and SciPy) but the problem is I do use a lot of Matlab-specific toolboxes, mainly for RF and control stuff, but a couple of years ago started playing with their audio packages. That said, Octave is very good, the plotting library in Python works very well, there is lots of third-party support, and if I did not have the investment in Matlab already would agree with starting there. Plus I am not a real programmer, though end up doing quite a bit of it these days, more an analog dinosaur.

Last edited: Dec 20, 2018

Don Herman
"After silence, that which best expresses the inexpressible, is music" - Aldous Huxley

New Member

... Typical audio analyzer is an analog to digital converter (ADC) with a bunch of software.
In the case of Audio Precision analyzers, they also have excellent auto-scaling "gain" stages that can amplify or reduce the levels of signals to allow very wide dynamic range. When fed strong signals though, the ADC can produce its own noise and harmonic distortion which can be confused with the device under test.

The late Dr. Tom Kite explains and demos this well in this short video:

In addition to above analysis hardware, the generator is also improved to have lower distortion. Ironically, this is an analog solution that beats the digital one (a DAC)!!! Sometimes old technology beats new. Combined these too and looping the APx555 to itself produces this on my bench: ...

Hi and sorry to jump in but i am confused. I am not an expert. But you talk about a fully analog device here ? but from the schematic i see that the incoming analog signals are still converted to digital. So the device is actually like a state of the art AD/DA converter ? I would be curious to know which ADC and DAC are used in this exceptional equipment. And sorry but i have to ask a silly question ... does this device sound ? can it be used as a high end musical ADC o DAC ? the noise is practically absent and the distortion as well.
Thanks a lot for all your excellent work.
Kindest regards, gino

Founder/Admin

Hi and sorry to jump in but i am confused. I am not an expert. But you talk about a fully analog device here ? but from the schematic i see that the incoming analog signals are still converted to digital. So the device is actually like a state of the art AD/DA converter ? I would be curious to know which ADC and DAC are used in this exceptional equipment. And sorry but i have to ask a silly question ... does this device sound ? can it be used as a high end musical ADC o DAC ? the noise is practically absent and the distortion as well.
Thanks a lot for all your excellent work.
Kindest regards, gino